editorNPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94As Senior Editor at NPR, Uri Berliner oversees coverage of business and the economy. He has supervised and edited much of NPR's work on the financial crisis, the auto industry, energy and the workplace. Berliner has helped to build Planet Money, a prize-winnng multimedia team that covers the global economy. Until recently, Berliner also edited NPR's sports coverage and was part of a team that won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Berliner came to NPR in 1999 from California, where he worked as a reporter for 12 years at daily newspapers in San Diego and Santa Barbara. At the San Diego Union-Tribune , he covered wildfires, street gangs, the border and military issues before becoming the paper's economics correspondent. His feature writing and investigative reporting earned several awards. In 1998, Berliner was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, where he studied business, history and economics. The following year he moved to Washington, D.C.NPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94Uri BerlinerWed, 21 Jun 2017 23:38:01 +0000Uri Berlinerhttp://peoriapublicradio.org
Uri BerlinerCopyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Some other news now - a founder of Uber left his job as CEO last night. The removal of Travis Kalanick follows a shareholder revolt and many questions about the workplace environment. Early this year, you may recall a former Uber engineer blogged about how the company mishandled her sexual harassment complaints. Other people then came forward, and then investigators found widespread sexual harassment and discrimination. NPR's business editor Uri Berliner is here. Hi, there. URI BERLINER, BYLINE: Hi, Steve. INSKEEP: So what made it clear that the man at the top had to go? INSKEEP: Well, what happened was big-time investors - major Silicon Valley venture capitalists - decided that it was time for him to go. These investors have huge stakes in Uber. Uber is valued at nearly $70 billion, making it the most highly-valued private company in America. INSKEEP: So they just saw him as a risk to their investment? BERLINER: Clearly, yeahUber Must Find A New CEO After Travis Kalanick Resignshttp://peoriapublicradio.org/post/uber-must-find-new-ceo-after-travis-kalanick-resigns
76773 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgWed, 21 Jun 2017 11:41:00 +0000Uber Must Find A New CEO After Travis Kalanick ResignsUri BerlinerDonald Trump won the backing of the National Rifle Association and many gun owners by opposing limits to the Second Amendment's right to bear arms. But since his election and in the early months of his presidency, Trump has not been good for the gun business. Shares of publicly traded firearms companies have fallen. The pro-gun president nicking the fortunes of the industry he vowed to protect may seem illogical on its face. But the slump makes complete sense when seen through unusual economics underlying the gun business. Most businesses are influenced by things such as interest rates and consumer confidence. In the gun industry, politics and fear matter. And they matter a lot. Over the last two years, there was plenty of both to go around amid terror attacks and school shootings. And, of course, there was the presidential race, which Hillary Clinton was heavily favored to win. Guns and ammunition sold fast. The FBI processed a record number of background checks on potential gun'Democrats Are Good For Gun Sales': Guess What Happened After Trump's Electionhttp://peoriapublicradio.org/post/democrats-are-good-gun-sales-guess-what-happened-after-trumps-election
72846 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgFri, 31 Mar 2017 09:11:00 +0000'Democrats Are Good For Gun Sales': Guess What Happened After Trump's ElectionUri BerlinerThe Stock Market Is On An Epic Upswing. Here's Why It Probably Hasn't Benefited Youhttp://peoriapublicradio.org/post/stock-markets-epic-upswing-heres-why-it-probably-hasnt-benefitted-you
70079 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgWed, 25 Jan 2017 21:18:00 +0000The Stock Market Is On An Epic Upswing. Here's Why It Probably Hasn't Benefited YouUri BerlinerQuietly on election night, overshadowed by the epic battle between blue and red, the map of America grew greener. Voters in four states — California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Maine — chose to legalize recreational marijuana. In Florida, Arkansas, Montana and North Dakota, ballot measures passed allowing pot to be used for medical purposes. (Only Arizona bucked the trend, saying no to recreational weed). About 60 percent of Americans now live in a state where cannabis is legal or soon to be legal in some form. And with marijuana use on a steady march toward normalization, if not outright national legalization, the booming cannabis industry appears bound for even greater growth. The smell of money is in the air. "Support for legal cannabis was one of the few mandates voters in both red and blue states delivered" Nov. 8, said Brendan Kennedy, CEO of the marijuana-focused private equity firm Privateer Holdings . Since the passage of the eight ballot measures, he says there's been a surgeAs More States Legalize Marijuana, Investors And Marketers Line Uphttp://peoriapublicradio.org/post/more-states-legalize-marijuana-investors-and-marketers-line
67393 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgSun, 20 Nov 2016 11:52:00 +0000As More States Legalize Marijuana, Investors And Marketers Line UpUri BerlinerSelf-driving cars have been getting a lot of attention lately: Uber's self-driving taxis in Pittsburgh, Tesla's semi-autonomous Model S and the driverless Google rides that look like a cross between a Cozy Coupe and a golf cart. But quietly and without much fanfare, researchers and entrepreneurs are working on self-driving trucks — big rigs, tractor trailers. Trucker Rusty Todd has heard a bit about them. He paused to consider a future of self-driving trucks while taking a break at a truck stop in Jessup, Md. "Well then, I'm going to be without a job," Todd said with a laugh. He's joking. Kinda, sorta. Todd's not worried about losing his job to a robot driver anytime soon. But he said what he's hearing about self-driving trucks makes him a bit nervous. " 'Cause not all systems are perfect. I mean not all computers are perfect," Todd said. "They're doing it with the cars, yeah, I can agree with that 'cause a car doesn't weigh as much as these things do. These things are heavy." Todd'sFor The Long Haul, Self-Driving Trucks May Pave The Way Before Carshttp://peoriapublicradio.org/post/long-haul-self-driving-trucks-may-pave-way-cars
65775 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgThu, 13 Oct 2016 22:58:00 +0000For The Long Haul, Self-Driving Trucks May Pave The Way Before CarsUri BerlinerMuch of the anger and anxiety in the 2016 election are fueled by the sense that economic opportunity is slipping away for many Americans. This week, as part of NPR's collaborative project with member stations, A Nation Engaged , we're asking the question: What can be done to create economic opportunity for more Americans? There are plenty of Springfields in the U.S. Thirty-three, according to one government count. The Springfield in Ohio is a blue-collar city with a lot of history, pain and pride: a place with an uncertain future. "When you look at what makes America great, what makes America not great, our ups and our downs, Springfield represents all of that," says Kevin Rose, a historian with the Turner Foundation, a local philanthropy. For years now, the not so great seems to have the upper hand. "Springfield is a rather typical small city that has grown poorer over the years," says Roger Baker, the city's mayor in the '70s and '80s. Poorer — a lot poorer. Median incomes fell anSpringfield, Ohio: A Shrinking City Faces A Tough Economic Future http://peoriapublicradio.org/post/springfield-ohio-shrinking-city-faces-tough-economic-future
64733 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgMon, 19 Sep 2016 09:45:00 +0000Springfield, Ohio: A Shrinking City Faces A Tough Economic Future Uri BerlinerCopyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.Courtside Seat For Basketball Games Helps Ohio Woman Fight Cancerhttp://peoriapublicradio.org/post/courtside-seat-basketball-games-helps-ohio-woman-fight-cancer
58970 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgWed, 18 May 2016 09:56:00 +0000Courtside Seat For Basketball Games Helps Ohio Woman Fight CancerUri BerlinerSome financial experts want to introduce a tool to help people plan for retirement better. It's a very old tool, discarded and almost forgotten. But for centuries it was used to build bridges, fancy meeting halls and to provide people with income in their old age. That is, before it was undone by fraud and ghoulish portrayals in popular culture. The tool is called a tontine. A group of people pool their cash and pitch in together to buy into an unusual sort of betting club. They're buying a bond that makes regular payments, or dividends. Each individual bets on how long he or she will live. "That dividend is going to be distributed to all the people that purchased this bond with the minor proviso that you have to be alive to get those dividends," says Moshe Milevsky, a finance professor at the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto who has written extensively about tontines . The name tontine, Milevsky says, is derived from a Neapolitan banker, Lorenzo de Tonti, whoLive Long And Prosper: Reviving An Idea For Income In Old Agehttp://peoriapublicradio.org/post/live-long-and-prosper-reviving-idea-income-old-age
51044 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgFri, 27 Nov 2015 22:06:00 +0000Live Long And Prosper: Reviving An Idea For Income In Old AgeUri BerlinerComfortable with technology and skeptical of Wall Street, a growing number of young investors have turned to low-fee automated financial advisers for help saving for retirement. They're called roboadvisers — or robos — and they appeal to Jesus Adrian Perez, 29, a biometric analyst from Albuquerque, N.M., because he knows what's at stake when lots of charges are tacked on to investments. "I hear about investment advisers — that their fees are always really high, and you end up losing a lot of money in the long run," Perez says. He signed up with a roboadviser called WiseBanyan , an online financial manager that builds the customer a portfolio of low-fee funds based on the person's age, goals and tolerance for risk. All these decisions are made by an algorithm, not a broker. And that's fine with Perez. "I always think robots are better at everything than a human being can do," he says. "They're going to be better at driving cars, identifying diseases. Human error is a big thing — andWould You Let A Robot Manage Your Retirement Savings?http://peoriapublicradio.org/post/would-you-let-robot-manage-your-retirement-savings
49140 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgTue, 20 Oct 2015 09:20:00 +0000Would You Let A Robot Manage Your Retirement Savings?Uri BerlinerIran may not be fond of Western-style capitalism, but it has a stock market where shares in Iranian companies are traded. And if sanctions are lifted following the nuclear deal, it could be where international investors road-test Iran's economy. Earlier this week, just after the landmark deal about the future of Iran's nuclear program had been announced, Radman Rabii in Teheran was excited about the future. "I'm in my office. I have emails overflowing with interest from people all around the world that have heard the news," he says. Rabii's job with Iranian firm Firouzeh Asia Brokerage is to drum up international interest in Iran's stock market. He says there's more substance there than outsiders might expect. "The Iranian stock market is a well-diversified exchange. There are 35, 36 different sectors," says Rabii. They include chemicals, banking, base metals, industrial holdings, telecommunications, oil products and more. It's that diversity and potential that intrigues CharlieNuclear Deal Opens Up Potential For Investors In Iran's Stock Markethttp://peoriapublicradio.org/post/nuclear-deal-opens-potential-investors-irans-stock-market
44425 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgFri, 17 Jul 2015 21:14:00 +0000Nuclear Deal Opens Up Potential For Investors In Iran's Stock MarketUri BerlinerWalk into a bar or spend some time in an airport and there's a good chance ESPN is on TV. What happens on its ever-present SportsCenter, airing live 18 times daily, resonates with sports fans around the country. So it matters that over the past couple of years, ESPN has increased coverage of what's always been an extremely sensitive topic for leagues and TV networks — sports betting. ESPN says it wants to be more direct about a topic broadcasters have dealt with circuitously, often with a wink and nod, rather than in the direct language of gambling. An example would be the point spread, the most basic number in sports betting. It's the line oddsmakers set between the favorite and underdog. "There was a time when we would talk about it without talking about it," says Rob King, head of ESPN's SportsCenter. "We'd say phrases like, 'The game's going to be closer than the experts think.' " Those days are over. Take, for example, Las Vegas betting analyst R.J. Bell's men's NCAA Final FourESPN Brings Betting Talk To The Mainstreamhttp://peoriapublicradio.org/post/espn-brings-betting-talk-mainstream
43382 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgFri, 26 Jun 2015 22:38:00 +0000ESPN Brings Betting Talk To The MainstreamUri BerlinerWal-Mart made its name by going big: massive super centers with gallon jars of pickles and rows and rows of lawn chairs and tires. Its future may depend a lot on going small. It's investing in smaller stores in densely populated urban neighborhoods, where customers buy fewer items at a time. Customers like Donna Thomas, who walked over to a Wal-Mart near Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on her lunch break from her job as an executive assistant at Comcast. "I got a rotissierie chicken, and a card and my prescription," Thomas says. "It's very practical for me because a lot of times, I don't have a lot of time to go shopping. It's convenient for me. I can just grab something and go." We're living in grab-and-go times. Meals planned out days in advance? That's just not happening. "Depending on the version of the survey you look at, 70 to 80 percent of us don't know what we're going to have for dinner at 4 p.m.," says Justin Massa, the founder of a company called Food Genius that analyzesWhy Wal-Mart Is Betting Big On Being Your Local Urban Grocerhttp://peoriapublicradio.org/post/why-wal-mart-betting-big-being-your-local-urban-grocer
38979 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgSat, 04 Apr 2015 11:33:00 +0000Why Wal-Mart Is Betting Big On Being Your Local Urban GrocerUri BerlinerOne-hundred-fifty years ago, a man named Samuel Van Syckel built the nation's first commercial oil pipeline in the rugged terrain of northwestern Pennsylvania. His pipeline transformed how oil is transported — and it would change the modern world, too — but not before a battle that makes the debate over the Keystone XL pipeline look meek by comparison. In January 1865, the place where this all happened, called Pithole, was nowhere, really — just a patch of wilderness in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. Then drillers struck gushers at three wells and everything changed. By September, an estimated 15,000 people moved to Pithole. And soon, Van Syckel had constructed his 5 1/2-mile pipeline. A Place Called Pithole, And An Opportunity Walking the snowy grounds of what used to be Pithole City, Sue Beates, curator of the nearby Drake Well Museum, points out the sites where old Methodist and Presbyterian churches once stood. But there was more to Pithole than religious devotion, sheEven Pickaxes Couldn't Stop The Nation's First Oil Pipelinehttp://peoriapublicradio.org/post/even-pickaxes-couldnt-stop-nations-first-oil-pipeline
37007 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgWed, 25 Feb 2015 01:20:00 +0000Even Pickaxes Couldn't Stop The Nation's First Oil PipelineUri BerlinerWith wages still stuck for many Americans, the big drop in gasoline prices is the equivalent of an unexpected cash bonus for the nation's drivers. The average American household is expected to save $750 this year from lower gas prices, according to the Energy Department . But Thomas Kinnaman, an economist at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., says it's instructive to look beyond the word "average." "It's not that we're not all average families — we're not average drivers," he says. "We have very different driving habits." Residents of the least densely populated areas of the U.S. — in rural Montana or Texas, for example — typically drive more than four times as much as people who live in cities such as New York or San Francisco. Those drivers stand to gain a lot more from the lower prices. Kinnaman says that in rural Pennsylvania, where he teaches and where NPR recently interviewed drivers about gas prices, the average person typically drives twice as much as someone living in aFor Long-Haul Drivers, Cheap Gas Means A Sweeter Commutehttp://peoriapublicradio.org/post/long-haul-drivers-cheap-gas-means-sweeter-commute
35628 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgThu, 29 Jan 2015 09:14:00 +0000For Long-Haul Drivers, Cheap Gas Means A Sweeter CommuteUri BerlinerMany things made with paper have become relics because of computers and the Internet: the Rolodex, multivolume encyclopedias, even physical maps. Now take a look in your mailbox or somewhere around your house. There's a good chance you'll see a shopping catalog, maybe a few of them now that it's the holiday season. "I ignore them," says Rick Narad, a professor at California State University, Chico. "I get them in the mail sometimes, and they don't make it into the house. I walk past the recycling bin, and they go right in." So why, in the digital age, are they still around? "Consumers really still love looking at catalogs," says Bruce Cohen, a retail private equity strategist at the management consulting firm Kurt Salmon. The company published an article called "Is the Catalog Dead?" and the answer was a definitive no. The number of catalogs mailed in the U.S. peaked in 2007, according to the Direct Marketing Association. It's come down since then, but last year it ticked up again to aHere's Why Retailers Keep Sending You Catalogshttp://peoriapublicradio.org/post/heres-why-retailers-keep-sending-you-catalogs
33280 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgThu, 11 Dec 2014 08:54:00 +0000Here's Why Retailers Keep Sending You CatalogsUri BerlinerSeveral years ago, South Carolina had a problem: a shortage of skilled workers and no good way to train young people for the workforce. So at a time when apprenticeship programs were in decline in the U.S., the state started a program called Apprenticeship Carolina. "We were really, really squarely well-positioned at the bottom," says Brad Neese, the program's director. From the beginning, South Carolina took apprenticeship beyond the building trades — that's the traditional route for apprentices — to fields like nursing, pharmacy and IT. As the number of apprenticeship programs has fallen nationwide, it has taken off in South Carolina. "When we started this back in 2007, we only had 90 companies that had apprenticeship programs," Neese says. "We've hit 670, which, by the way, we only had 777 apprentices in 2007. And we've now serviced nearly 11,000 apprentices. So it's been a phenomenal growth." What's the secret sauce? A state tax credit for companies doesn't hurt — but at $1,000 perIn South Carolina, A Program That Makes Apprenticeships Workhttp://peoriapublicradio.org/post/south-carolina-program-makes-apprenticeships-work
31642 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgThu, 06 Nov 2014 08:24:00 +0000In South Carolina, A Program That Makes Apprenticeships WorkUri BerlinerThere's a long, unfolding story about work in America that often gets overlooked. It's the story of men opting out of work altogether. These are men who have vanished from the labor force — men who don't have a job and aren't looking for one. To describe this historic development with the context it deserves, we start with the American economy after World War II. It was firing on all cylinders, dominant globally, confident and dynamic. It was a great time to be an American man in the workplace. Hiring was strong for white-collar jobs and factory work. Industries like autos, aviation and steel were booming. If you were a man in the 1950s, you had a job, says Nicholas Eberstadt, an economist with the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank. And if you lost it, you started looking for another one. "If you weren't in the Army and you weren't in jail, you were very, very likely working, and there was probably a good reason for why you were not seeking work and not workingWhy Are Men Leaving The American Workforce?http://peoriapublicradio.org/post/why-are-men-leaving-american-workforce
27819 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgMon, 11 Aug 2014 20:14:00 +0000Why Are Men Leaving The American Workforce?Uri BerlinerA year ago, NPR's Uri Berliner decided to take his money out of a savings account that was losing value to inflation and turn it loose in an investing adventure. A series of stories in 2013 described his newly acquired assets and sought to shed light on how the markets for them worked. I had up to $5,000 of savings I was willing to risk. I ended up investing around $3,600. (For a breakdown of the investments, click here .) I separated the investments into two distinct categories: Plain vanilla, which were the kind of low-cost, diversified funds we ought to have in our retirement accounts. More flavorful assets that I chose primarily (OK, exclusively) for their storytelling potential, like buying a painting online, making a bulk haul at Costco as a hedge against inflation, and betting on coffee futures. A number of my colleagues have said, "Hey, whatever happened to your investments, Mr. Business Editor?" So here's the scorecard. Fair warning 1: My idiosyncratic portfolio was assembledFrom Coffee Futures To Bulk Buying: A Year Of Adventurous Investinghttp://peoriapublicradio.org/post/coffee-futures-bulk-buying-year-adventurous-investing
24482 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgFri, 06 Jun 2014 07:46:00 +0000From Coffee Futures To Bulk Buying: A Year Of Adventurous InvestingUri BerlinerThe men's NCAA college basketball tournament starts next week. In a twist on the familiar March Madness bracket, a mortgage company and a world-famous investor are offering a billion dollars to anyone who picks the winner of all 63 games in the NCAA college basketball tournament. It's a contest, and it may also be the perfect publicity stunt. Let's introduce the players. There's Quicken Loans, the mortgage company that's sponsoring the contest. And there's investor Warren Buffett — he's the insurance man here, willing to pay out the $1 billion if someone wins. Then there's Yahoo — you need one of its accounts to enter. Finally, there's as many as 15 million people who are expected to sign up to play. Maybe you've heard the odds of picking a perfect bracket? They're not good: one in 9.2 quintillion. Nine quintillion. That's a nine, followed by 18 zeroes. That's not the kind of number we actually use on this planet. It's a number that a couple of 10-year-olds might invent during aWhy You Won't Win Warren Buffett's Billion-Dollar Brackethttp://peoriapublicradio.org/post/why-you-wont-win-warren-buffets-billion-dollar-bracket
20295 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgSat, 15 Mar 2014 15:05:00 +0000Why You Won't Win Warren Buffett's Billion-Dollar BracketUri BerlinerBeing a news consumer means you're constantly on the receiving end of bad news. War, unemployment, crime, political dysfunction — it can be enough to make you think we humans aren't doing anything right. But good news: We are. As the year draws to an end, here's a look at a few areas of real progress in the U.S. and around the world. Air Safety Let's start with flying. It's not a lot of fun: baggage fees, pat-downs, cramped seating, disappointing snacks. But the odds are remarkably good you will land safely. "For a person who boarded a flight anywhere in the world earlier this year, the chance of being killed in an accident is about 1 in 15 million," says Arnie Barnett, an MIT statistics professor who studies aviation safety. So what does that mean when we're up in the air? "At that rate, 1 in 15 million, you could go approximately 40,000 years, taking a flight every single day, before you would, on average, succumb to a fatal crash," Barnett says. Big onboard safety improvements likeTired Of Doom And Gloom? Here's The Best Good News Of 2013http://peoriapublicradio.org/post/tired-doom-and-gloom-heres-best-good-news-2013
16744 as http://peoriapublicradio.orgTue, 24 Dec 2013 07:57:00 +0000Tired Of Doom And Gloom? Here's The Best Good News Of 2013